All educators bring to their work preconceived ideas of what the curriculum should be and how students learn. Seldom are they thought through. Since without an adequate philosophical base it is difficult to bring about desirable changes in policy and practice, it is necessary that educators have defensible philosophies of engineering education. This point is illustrated by recent debates on educational outcomes which can be analysed in terms of competing curriculum ideologies. While these ideologies inform the development of a philosophy of engineering education they do so in light of a philosophy of engineering for such a philosophy focuses on what engineering is, and in particular how it differs from science. This is addressed in this study through consideration of the differences in the modes of abstraction required for the pursuit of science on the one hand, and the pursuit of engineering design, on the other hand. It is shown that a philosophy of engineering is not a philosophy ofscience or a philosophy of engineering education, but it is from a philosophy of engineering that a philosophy of engineering education is drawn. Uncertainty is shown to be a key characteristic of engineering practice. A way of formulating a philosophy of engineering is to consider it through the classical prism that splits the subject into five divisions, namely epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics aesthetics. Additionally, "behaviour" also characterizes the practice of engineering.
John Heywood is a Professorial Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin. His primary interest is in education for the professions, especially engineering, management and teacher education. He was awarded the best research publication award of the division for the professions of the American Educational Research Association in 2006 for his book “Engineering Education: Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction” published by IEEE/Wiley. His other publications include “Learning, Adaptability and Change: The challenge for education and Industry”, “The Human Side of Engineering”, “Empowering Professional teaching in Engineering; Sustaining the Scholarship of Teaching”. He was a co-author of “Analysing Jobs”.
William Grimson received his B.A. and B.A.I. from Trinity College Dublin and his M.Sc. from the University of Toronto. He is a Charted Engineer and a Fellow of Engineers Ireland of which he has been President. Now retired. He worked as a Research and development engineer for Ferranti Ltd before joining the academic staff of the Dublin Institute of Technology. His academic output was and remains eclectic, ranging from publications in areas as diverse as plasma physics, clinical information systems, philosophy of engineering, and development issues.
Jerry W. Gravander is Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Clarkson University. He has undergraduate degrees in chemistry from Illinois Institute of Technology and in philosophy from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Texas at Austin. He has written and presented widely on liberal education for engineering students, as well as engineering ethics and the impacts of science and technology on society. He was the 1996 recipient of the Sterling Olmsted Award of the American Society for Engineering Education’s Liberal Education Division.
Gregory Bassett is a lecturer in philosophy at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Indiana University, a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory, and a B.A in Philosophy from Swarthmore College. Dr. Bassett’s research interests are primarily focused on ethics and action theory, including topics such as weakness of will and the relationship of desire and action.
John Krupczak, Jr. is a professor of engineering at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He has been a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Engineering Education (CASEE) of the National Academy of Engineering. Krupczak was founding chair of the Technological and Engineering Literacy Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). From 2013–2016 he served as a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation. Krupczak received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and a B.A. in Physics from Williams College.
